


Silver Bells

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Secret Saito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8894368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: It's Christmastime in the city.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A Secret Saito gift for sage-the-empress, whose prompt was "city." At first I was running through all of the exotic cities in the world where Arthur and Eames might spend the holidays and then I thought...why not put them in the city I know best. So here is a bunch of Christmas fluff in Boston.

Arthur should flee, very, very far from Vermont, where the job has gone to hell. He needs distance from the people who want him dead. 

But Arthur hasn’t slept in almost three full days—sleeping for the job doesn’t count—and Arthur makes it as far as Boston and loses all willpower to get himself to the airport, to get himself on a plane, to get himself somewhere else. Eames has a safe house in Boston, a ridiculously posh brownstone that’s all strange angles and falling-down plaster that Eames calls “charming” and refuses to fix, and Arthur manages to disable any of the security systems that make noise and stumbles into the house. He knows that Eames will know he’s there, as Arthur left the other security systems up and running, so he waves negligently to the cameras he knows are observing him, re-arms the noisy security systems to protect him while he sleeps, straggles into the bedroom, collapses onto the bed, and is immediately out. 

***

Arthur wakes later to Eames sitting up in bed next to him, reading a book, reading glasses he tries to pretend he doesn’t need perched on his nose. 

Arthur yawns enormously and says, “What are you doing here?” 

“Hello, gorgeous,” Eames replies mildly. “I got an alert someone had broken into my house. What are _you_ doing here?” 

“Breaking into your house,” mumbles Arthur, and uses Eames as a convenient pillow. Since he’s _there_.

“So I see.” Eames pets a hand through Arthur’s hair. 

“You’re in San Francisco,” Arthur thinks to say, already more than half-asleep. 

“I am obviously in Boston. I flew out when I saw exactly which Goldilocks had tumbled into my bed.” 

“I hope you didn’t fuck up your job,” slurs out Arthur. “I can’t take another fuck-up.” And then Arthur lets himself fall back to sleep. 

***

Arthur wakes again to the tantalizing smells of coffee and bacon. And an empty bed. So he would have thought he’d imagined Eames, were it not for the obvious fact that someone is in the kitchen. 

Arthur rolls himself out of bed and into the bathroom. A shower feels beyond him at the moment but he tries to make himself look halfway decent and at least brushes his teeth. Then he goes to the kitchen. 

It’s Eames standing at the stove, theoretically cooking but actually reading a magazine. It was something that surprised Arthur, how constantly Eames reads. 

“Hello,” Eames says to him. “You look terrible.” 

“Thank you,” says Arthur, pouring himself a cup of coffee. 

“Sit down, you horrible, incompetent man, and let me feed you.”

“Incompetent?” Arthur echoes, offended, although he can’t deny that he wants to do illegal things to the omelet Eames slides in front of him. 

“When is the last time you ate?” 

“I don’t know,” says Arthur around a mouthful of omelet. “How long have I been asleep?” 

Eames sits at the table opposite him. He should be jetlagged, but he looks fresh as a daisy, damn him, because he’s an annoying fucker who is always unfairly attractive. He says, “I would like to savor my ‘I told you so.’ I’m going to savor it in several different languages.” 

“Shut up,” Arthur says sulkily. 

“Did I, or did I not, tell you not to take this job, that Rodrigo was a fucking imbecile—”

Arthur throws a piece of omelet at Eames. 

“Mature,” Eames says. 

“If you stop talking right now, I’ll let you take a shower with me.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames, smiling, eyes crinkling. “I really think you’ll let me take a shower with you anyway.” 

Arthur throws another piece of omelet at him. 

***

By the time they’re done showering, it’s dark outside. Granted, it’s Boston in December, so it gets dark early, but still. 

“Your sleep schedule’s fucked, darling,” says Eames jovially, and sets about building a fire in one of the house’s seven fireplaces, or whatever the fuck the ridiculous number is. Eames loves this house; Arthur thinks it feels like several colonial ghosts should be living in it. He doesn’t say this to Eames because he knows that would make Eames love the house even more. 

So Arthur says, “Seriously, though. What are you doing here?”

The fire is roaring now in the fireplace, and Eames has bundled Arthur up in an obscenely fuzzy blanket, and Arthur has his toes tucked under Eames’s thigh for extra warmth, and Eames is very absorbed in the showing of _White Christmas_ he found on television. 

Eames pauses the television and looks at Arthur and says, “Do you know what day it is?” 

“Yes,” says Arthur slowly, trying to remember if there’s something important about this day. He’s fairly sure Eames’s birthday is in May. 

Eames says, “Then you know that it’s almost Christmas.” 

Arthur says, “I also know that I’m Jewish.” 

“It’s also almost Chanukah.” 

“And suddenly I’m super-religious?”

Eames laughs. “I’m just saying: Don’t you think it’s the perfect time to take a break?” 

“A break? You think I need a break?” 

“Now, now, stop bristling, sweetheart. Sheathe your claws. _I_ need a break. I was tired, before I saw you’d broken into my house. And then I thought: I’d like to spend Christmas in Boston. I thought: I’m glad Arthur’s okay and the job with Rodrigo didn’t kill him.”

“I can handle Rodrigo—” Arthur begins. 

“I thought: Maybe I can get Arthur to sit still for a few days, catch up on some sleep, let me bake him some Christmas cookies.”

“Don’t you call them biscuits?”

Eames smiles at him, then reaches out and pushes a strand of Arthur’s hair off his forehead. Arthur left it loose and wavy after the shower, and he tells himself he didn’t do it because Eames has a tendency to touch it more in that state. He says softly, “You don’t have a job coming up until after Christmas. Sit still for a few days. Do it with me. Hmm? I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll do that thing you like every night. And maybe occasionally during the day, too.” 

Arthur is confused and suspicious and wary, because this is not how it goes with them. They come together for jobs and for fucks, but they don’t “sit still” together. They don’t cuddle under blankets on couches watching movies. 

But Arthur can’t deny that he is cozy and relaxed, and he has to lay low for a while anyway, and no one would expect him to be hiding out so close to Vermont, and he might be a little tired still, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to be, and Eames looks good enough to eat in his bright blue sweater with his damp hair curling in the heat from the fire. 

So Arthur says, “Okay. Deal.”

***

In the morning Eames makes him go outside with him. Arthur is not in favor of leaving the bundle of blankets, but Eames says Arthur has to stay up and fix his sleep schedule and the great outdoors will do it.

Arthur says there is nothing great about the outdoors. 

The air is so sharp it slices like a knife to breathe but it turns out to be invigorating, and it kind of does drive the sluggishness out of him. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s in a good mood as he follows Eames down the steep hill toward the little shop on the corner selling Boston-sized Christmas trees. 

Eames is incredibly particular about the Christmas tree. It has to have a certain _aesthetic_. 

Arthur is bored. And cold. And _Jewish_. He says, “For Christ’s sake, do you have to be such a fucking artist about it?” 

Eames says solemnly, “For _Christ’s_ sake, yes, yes, I do.”

The woman picking out a Christmas tree next to them gives Eames a look, clearly biting down on laughter. Her eyes are bright and speculative, and Eames has a wool coat on and a ridiculously patterned scarf that makes him look whimsical and alluring—although Arthur will never admit that, either—and Arthur narrows his eyes and steps into Eames’s personal space and kisses him hard. 

“Oh,” Eames says in surprise, as Arthur winds the kiss down. “That was lovely, darling, thank you.”

“Can we pick a fucking tree now?” Arthur asks. 

Eames picks a tree. 

The woman, Arthur notices with satisfaction, is nowhere to be found. 

***

“What. The. Actual. Fuck,” says Arthur, stretched out on his stomach, fiddling with a fucking Christmas tree stand, of all things. “This is a thing you guys do _every year_? _This_?”

“Well, no, I never have a Christmas tree,” says Eames. “This is a huge novelty for me. Darling, a little more to the left, it’s still crooked.”

“I am just _saying_ ,” Arthur huffs, “that it really seems to me like someone could have invented a better Christmas tree stand by now. Jesus Christ. This is _ridiculous_.”

“Perfect, darling!” proclaims Eames. 

Arthur rolls out from under the tree. Eames is beaming. It’s hard to be annoyed when Eames is beaming like that. 

Arthur tries anyway. He says, “I am covered in sap.” 

“Are you? How hideous. Shall I cover you in other things?” And then Eames is there on the floor with him, half-under the tree. 

“That is the most ridiculous double entendre—” starts Arthur, but the sentence ends in Eames’s mouth. 

***

It turns out Eames doesn’t have anything to actually put _on_ the tree, so they head out again to buy lights and ornaments. Eames also insists Arthur buy a menorah. Arthur tries to tell him that he doesn’t care that much but he’s surprised by how secretly pleased he is when Eames gives it a place of honor in the living room. 

They inevitably argue over the best way to trim the Christmas tree, and Eames tries to claim that he knows best because he’s actually Christian, and Arthur tries to claim that he knows best because _look at Eames’s clothing_ , and in the end Arthur’s pretty sure they both win the argument, judging by the activities they partake in later. 

Eames is so delighted with his tree that he makes them sit naked out in the living room, basking in the glow of its lights and splitting a bottle of wine and some delivery Indian. 

Eames says, “This—this is the true meaning of Christmas.” 

“Two men sitting naked together getting drunk between fucks?” 

“Yes. Exactly that. You’re such a poet, petal.” Eames smiles at him like he actually means it. 

***

Eames takes Arthur to the Museum of Fine Arts. He talks animatedly about all his favorite paintings and Arthur watches his face and thinks that he’s seen nothing in the museum that could hold a candle to _Eames_ , although that is far too ridiculous a thought to voice out loud. They go directly from there to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where Eames talks animatedly about art heists and then insists he wants to sketch Arthur naked in the lush courtyard. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “You would sketch me naked anywhere.” 

Eames says quizzically, “You say that like it’s a _bad_ thing.” 

Eames takes Arthur to the Mapparium, and they walk through it murmuring about jobs they’ve pulled in all the different countries. Eames makes them get off the T long before their stop, just so they can walk up Newbury Street and window-shop, Eames purring in Arthur’s ear about how delicious he’d look in all the menswear and Arthur having fantasies of his own about _being_ in the menswear. It’s cold as they walk, the wind tunneling down the street at them, and that’s the only reason Arthur presses his nose into Eames’s neck, hunting for warmth and not just for the way Eames smells, just behind his ear. It’s not like he’s addicted to the way Eames smells or anything stupid like that. 

Their stroll takes them through the Common, bright with haphazard and half-heartedly flung lights, and even that seems charming, and Eames tries to convince Arthur to ice skate on the Frog Pond with him. 

“I don’t know how to ice skate,” Arthur says. 

“Perfect. It will give me every opportunity in the world to grope you as I assist you around the rink.” 

“We have a house a few blocks from here and I’ll let you grope me all you want inside,” says Arthur. 

Eames is so wicked and lovely in the glow of the ubiquitous Christmas lights, with his breath ghosting out into the air around them. Arthur wants to capture that cloud of condensation, that little bit of Eames life, and bottle it, keep it safe forever. 

He almost gives in to the ice skating. That’s how potent the magic of the moment is.

***

When they get back to the house, Eames puts on Christmas carols and uncoils evergreen bunting that he ordered, because every other house in the neighborhood is covered with evergreens and they only have one sorry tree. According to Eames. Arthur couldn’t care less about Christmas decoration peer pressure. 

Arthur is looking under the tree, where there’s a single wrapped present. 

“Did you buy me a Christmas gift?” he asks finally, unsure what else to make of that. 

Eames is sitting cross-legged, surrounded by acres of bunting. He says, “Santa must have nipped down the chimney.” 

“Eames, I’m _Jewish_.” 

“It’s a Chanukah gift. See? The paper is blue and white.” 

Arthur sighs and looks back at Eames, who is now attempting to attach the bunting around the elaborate molding of the front window in a way that doesn’t destroy the molding. 

Arthur helps him, because it’s the least he can do for someone who got him a Chanukah gift. 

When they’re done, Eames surveys it, looking very pleased, and then pulls Arthur against him, and then starts… _dancing_. Arthur hadn’t realized that this particular carol was slow and croony. 

Eames is quiet against him, and Eames is never quiet, and Arthur thinks this is dangerous, all of the quiet satisfaction he can feel rolling off of Eames. 

_We have a house a few blocks from here_ , Arthur had said. _We_. 

He clears his throat—anything to break the silence—and says, “I didn’t know you liked Christmas so much.”

“Hmm,” says Eames into Arthur’s neck, where his face is pressed contentedly. “I don’t, really. I’ve never done this before. But it’s fun, isn’t it?”

Arthur wonders, looking out the window. The lights are on in the building across the way. Beyond that the sky is black. Arthur says, “Do you wish you had…I don’t know…a family or something…to do this with?” 

Eames huffs into Arthur’s skin. He sounds amused. “No, darling. I wish nothing different about my life at all.” 

Arthur doesn’t really know what to say to that. So eventually he strokes a hand over the back of Eames’s head, the hair short on the nape of his neck. 

Eames says, “Thanks for being a good sport about my ridiculous Christmas.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and wonders why he feels all choked up about it. “Anytime.”

***

The next day Eames insists on the Freedom Trail, but it’s frigid and they lose interest quickly in walking in the brutal Boston wind and instead Eames institutes a game of How Many Inappropriate Places Can We Snog. They irritate a lot of people but Arthur can’t bring himself to care. 

They dine that night in a restaurant so cozy that Eames, in an extravagant display, buys the whole place out. They sit in a corner table tucked by a window and watch the crowds come and go on the street and drink glass after glass of champagne as if they are celebrating. Eames eats with his hand high on Arthur’s thigh and Arthur sees no reason not to kiss Eames’s jaw. A lot. 

“You’re beautiful in Christmas lighting,” Arthur tells him contentedly, because he _is_. 

“You’re drunk,” Eames replies good-naturedly. “But thank you, darling, I’ll accept the compliment. You’re not so bad yourself.”

_What are we doing?_ Arthur wants to ask, but doesn’t. 

They go home and fall into bed together. 

Eames yawns and says, “Tomorrow I’ll take you to Harvard Square.” 

Arthur lays awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to him snoring, and thinking. He and Eames…they don’t do _this_.They have very excellent sex when they’re in the same geographic area. And they trust each other, so they know about each other’s safe houses. And they have a long history, have survived so much together, so it only makes sense that they’re each other’s first call. For, well, anything, really. Always. 

But this seems different to him. This staying put, in one place, playing house. The sheer domesticity of it. 

And the unmistakable joyful delighted edge that Eames has worn this entire time. The fact that he never stops beaming magnificently at Arthur. Eames has always been free and easy with smiles when it’s just the two of them, but this has been above and beyond lately. Eames, who wanted so desperately for him to stay. Who wanted Christmas _with Arthur_ , when he could have easily done this all on his own. Who wished nothing different about his life.

Arthur can’t remember—has Eames always looked at him this way? Or is this a new development? He thinks of the woman that first day, while they selected their Christmas tree, and his burst of fiery jealousy, his sure steady knowledge that Eames was his and people should be made to know that—where had that come from? 

Arthur stares at the ceiling and thinks to himself, _Fuck, is it possible Eames is your boyfriend?_

***

Arthur loves Harvard Square. Arthur loves Eames in Harvard Square. Arthur spends far too much time just watching Eames browse through bookstores, lush lower lip caught in his teeth in concentration. Eames eventually ends up choosing a novel for himself and a coffee table books of antique fashion catalogues for Arthur. 

Arthur says, “You didn’t have to, you already bought me a present,” but Eames looks so pleased, so proud of himself, that Arthur then adds, “But thank you, I love it,” and Eames kisses Arthur’s right dimple.

They settle in at a coffee shop and Eames gets lost in his novel and Arthur flips through the pages of his book but mostly watches Eames. 

***

The next morning is Christmas Eve. Arthur wants to wake early, before Eames, and sleeps fitfully all night as a result. In the morning, he eases himself out of bed and leaves Eames a quick note. 

And then he goes shopping. 

Only it’s no good, because he hunts high and low, through every antique store and every quirky boutique, and he can’t find anything good enough for Eames. 

So in the end he gives up and buys him the one thing he can think of, and hope that Eames guesses the rest of it. 

***

Eames is reading next to his Christmas tree when Arthur gets in. 

He says curiously, “Where have you been?”

“Walking around the city,” Arthur says. “Trying to find a prospect for a better Christmas Eve fuck than the one I have lined up.”

“Oh, really? How’d you do?”

“Hard to say. I might need a demonstration of what’s on the menu for tonight.” 

Eames puts his book aside. “Oh, I see.”

“A preview.”

“Here’s a preview for you: I bought us sugar cookie dough. I bet we could smear it on each other’s bodies and lick it up.” 

“Never mind, I’ve made up my mind, I am definitely going to trawl the city for a better offer than _that_.”

***

“It’s snowing,” says Eames softly. 

He’s sitting by the window, staring out at it raptly. 

Arthur hands Eames the glass of wine he poured for him and puts a platter of their Christmas cookies down. Eames’s Christmas cookies are elaborate; Arthur’s look like a kindergartener was helping Eames out. Oh, well. 

Eames, he notices, takes one of Arthur’s cookies, and smiles at it, all soft and blurred, like a Currier and Ives Christmas scene. 

Eames is too beautiful for Arthur to look at, so Arthur looks out the window instead. It is indeed snowing. Eames’s picture-perfect street is blanketed in the hush of it, the Christmas lights glowing from underneath the delicate white lace of it. In the distance, Arthur can hear people actually fucking caroling. They’re living in a fucking Hallmark movie. 

Arthur, because he can’t stand it anymore, goes to his coat and pulls his gift out of his pocket and hands it to Eames. 

Eames looks amazed. “What’s this?”

Arthur is a little offended he looks so amazed. “What does it look like?”

“You didn’t have to…”

“Shut up,” says Arthur, embarrassed. “Merry Christmas.” 

Eames, after a second, beams at him and then attacks the present.

It’s a Christmas ornament, a ridiculous white ball that’s meant to look like “I Heart Boston,” except that there’s a lobster where the heart should be. Seeing it anew, Arthur wonders suddenly if he was an idiot to get it. He’d thought it was just the perfect amount of kitschy to suit Eames’s terrible taste, but now he thinks Eames is going to think this is _stupid_. 

Arthur keeps his eyes on the ornament and says, “I thought that—I mean, you want to…you want to…You should have ornaments. For your Christmas tree. Like, real ones, that you like. Not that you necessarily like that one. But just…not just the random generic ones you grab at a store a few days before the holiday because all the good ones are sold out. You’re the last person who ought to have a random generic Christmas tree. So next year you can…I mean, this can start your collection so next year…”

He risks a look at Eames. 

Eames is staring at him. 

“I mean,” says Arthur, awkward, “if you don’t want it—if you don’t want to—you don’t have to—”

“Darling.” Eames takes Arthur’s hand, places the ornament in it, and then guides it up to the tree, and Arthur watches as, together, they hook the ornament onto it. Then Eames takes their joined hands to his mouth and kisses Arthur’s knuckle. “It’s lovely. As long as you promise to be here with me next year when I take it out of storage.”

Arthur nods. Because that’s what Arthur _meant_. And Eames got it, because that’s Eames for you, and there’s a possibility—Arthur concluded as much that morning, dissatisfied with every store in Boston—that Eames isn’t his boyfriend; Eames is probably the fucking love of his life. 

Eames smiles and says, “You’ve set the gift-giving bar rather high. The present under the tree is just a tie. A lovely tie, but…please don’t be too disappointed.”

It’s Arthur’s turn to be amazed. “Eames,” he says. “As if I ever could be.”


End file.
